Our second day of class was very enlightening, and I believe my favorite part was our short conversation on humanism. It seems to place a lot of things in perspective for me when I think of how the ‘progression’ in the art and the history of the Renaissance move forward in parallel, given that shift in mindset from “viator mundi” to “faber mundi”. When I think of the ways in which men like Vasari spoke of art, specifically Florentine art, it makes me see them in a much less favorable light if Im to be honest. Their arrogance makes me want to look more into the work of the Middle Ages and such to see what was so wrong with it.
I also really loved Professor’s callout about the naming of certain art genres and their origins, drawing from the Goths and other ‘barbaric’ peoples. It builds upon the shakiness of that teleological frame of looking at history.